For many vehicle manufacturers, vehicle performance is one of the most important criteria for selling its products to consumers. Along with vehicle performance, the durability and overall life of a vehicle's components is very important. Consumers do not want to drive a vehicle that is constantly breaking down and/or being serviced. Of course, vehicle components naturally begin to wear and require attention through continued use. On many vehicles, tires must be replaced or rotated every several thousands of miles. Likewise, gaskets, shafts, sparkplugs, and other components can break and require replacement.
In a conventional front loader, for example, the vehicle can have a front frame assembly and a rear frame assembly. A front axle is connected to the front frame assembly and a rear axle is connected to the rear assembly. Torque is transferred to each wheel by a drive assembly. The drive assembly includes gears, shafts, bearings, and other components that have a finite life. A motor or engine can provide power to the drive assembly for driving the wheels. Therefore, after the drive assembly and motor, for example, have operated for a number of hours and miles, the internal components of each begin to wear and can potentially fail. Service plans and the like are established to replace or service a component before it negatively impacts vehicle performance.
The ability to perform service on the different components that are connected to an axle can be difficult. For example, it can be cumbersome to remove an entire axle from the vehicle. In most instances, the front axle is different from the rear axle. In addition, each axle can be packaged differently (e.g., with different components) and each axle can mount differently to its respective frame assembly. The front axle of a conventional front loader, for example, can be fixed to the front frame assembly, whereas the rear axle oscillates with respect to the rear axle. This difference can require different connections and steps for removing and servicing the front axle compared to the rear axle. Due to the differences in the front and rear axles, the motors, drive assemblies, gear sets, etc. that mount to the front axle can be substantially different from those that mount to the rear axle.
In addition, the components may wear differently depending on the vehicle application and where on the vehicle each component is located. For instance, if a vehicle makes left turns 75% of the time, those components on the leftside of the vehicle can wear more quickly and thus have less durability than those components on the rightside of the vehicle. In other instances, the components coupled to the front axle can wear more quickly than the components coupled to the rear axle. Thus, the vehicle service plan can require the front axle to be serviced after fewer miles or hours of operation than the rear axle. This can increase the amount of vehicle downtime and therefore reduce overall vehicle productivity.
Thus, a need exists for an improving the durability and overall life of a vehicle powertrain assembly. A further need is to simplify the manner in which the powertrain is serviced to improve vehicle productivity.